School is almost here! It’s crazy, really, how fast this summer has flown for me. It feels like 8th grade just ended and now I’m starting high school in less than three weeks! I am excited for school to start, though, and one of the things I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is school lunches. Before I went zero-waste, my lunches mostly consisted of primarily sandwiches, popcorn and carrot sticks in Ziploc bags, plastic-packaged junk food like chips and granola bars, and many other not-very-sustainable (or healthy) food items. Once I started zero-waste, I mostly filled my lunch box as full a ..read more

If you know my blog name – the Zero-Waste Teen – you know that I do consider myself “zero-waste,” and I don’t plan on re-branding myself. The reason I’m writing this post isn’t to tear down the zero-waste lifestyle or its ideologies, but to re-evaluate how we present ourselves to the world. Because let’s be honest: no one actually produces no waste. Even the faces of the movement like Lauren Singer and Bea Johnson create trash. Don’t get me wrong: fitting 5 years worth of trash is crazy impressive, but it’s not nothing. Here are the top reasons why I think zero-waste needs a new name: 1. It sc ..read more

Thrift stores are a huge deal in the zero-waste community, but what makes them so amazing? Here are the top five reasons why you should start shopping at thrift stores. 1. You can buy things second-hand This is the biggest reason why so many zero-wasters love thrift stores – everything is second-hand! The reason why second-hand clothing and other items are better for the environment is because making new things can pollute the environment and waste resources. According to Gizmodo, it takes almost 2,640 gallons of water to make a single pair of jeans and nearly 2,260 to make a pair of shoes. No ..read more

If you’ve never heard of an ecological footprint quiz before, it’s fairly self explanatory – you answer some questions about your lifestyle and you can find out how you are affecting the environment. I took two – one for the general environment and one for water – and they were both super interesting! The first quiz I took was from footprintcalculator.org. It asked 15 questions relating to food, household energy and transportation. These were my results: This was a bit of a upsetting result, but honestly, I wasn’t surprised. Especially since I live in America, a country that doesn’t have a g ..read more

The average American household contains 300,000 items, many of which soon end up in a landfill without much or any use. The minimalist and zero-waste lifestyles are working to combat that. Minimalism is a lifestyle in which you rid your home of anything unnecessary in hopes of finding meaning in your life beyond just material items. Zero-waste is a lifestyle where the goal is to stop using wasteful products to help fight pollution and help the environment. While on the outside, the two lifestyles seem different, they have quite a bit more in common than expected. The Focus The primary focus of ..read more

While scrolling through zero-waste Pinterest, you might have come across some pretty, aesthetic images like these: Ah, lovely isn’t it? You would love for your home to look like that someday: clean, white, natural, simplistic… I hate to be the one to shatter your dreams, but sadly, that’s not what zero-waste really looks like. Zero-waste, like other lifestyles which are made to look similarly aesthetic, isn’t as pretty as it looks on Pinterest. Here are some examples from my own home of some not-aesthetic parts of zero-waste: Toothpaste I’ve begun refusing toothpaste and toothbrushes at th ..read more

Let’s begin by saying this: I don’t like coffee. I apologize to all of the coffee-lovers out there, but I just don’t. I have a sweet tooth and won’t drink coffee unless it has way more sugar than is healthy for a normal person. A while back, though, my mom made up this recipe, and it has basically been my favorite food ever since. This recipe is vegan and sugar-free, and can also nut-free by replacing the peanut butter with sun butter, so it works for everyone! *Just a note: I’ve never measured how much of each ingredient I use, but this is an estimate. You can adjust it based how you want you ..read more

Compost. Isn’t it beautiful? Broken egg shells, dead bugs, rotting strawberry bits, slimy banana peels, mixed with dirt, clay and mud… Image source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Food-scraps-compost.jpg Okay, okay, I’m kind of joking. Kind of. While it look like a pile of trash, compost (what “rot” refers to) is actually pretty awesome! What can I compost? You can compost almost anything, really! With some things, you have to be careful: meat and dairy, for example, aren’t great things to compost (but if you really want to, check out this video on the best ways to do it ..read more

Hi everyone! I’m so sorry about the few missed weeks – I’ve been busy lately, but I’m back! The 5 R’s series is almost over, and if you haven’t seen any of the previous posts in the series, be sure to check them out here! Today we’re discussing what is probably the most well-known r, recycle, explaining a bit about how it works and why it’s actually the least effective of the five How does recycling work? While almost everyone knows what “recycle” means, it’s a bit more complicated than throwing plastic, steel, aluminum, glass and paper into a bin for a truck to take away and magically make i ..read more

Hi everyone! We’re halfway through the 5 r’s series and today I’m writing about the third r: reuse. If you’re interested in the first two r’s, refuse and reduce, please check out my previous posts on those! What is reusing? Reuse is the most obvious “r” on the list, and it refers to two things. The first is avoiding single-use items and opting for reusable ones instead. This includes things such as metal water bottles, metal, bamboo or silicone straws and metal or bamboo utensils. The zero-waste lifestyle puts a lot of emphasis on reusing. Even though there are single-use materials that can be ..read more